


An Invitation

by blackhorseandthecherrytree



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:09:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackhorseandthecherrytree/pseuds/blackhorseandthecherrytree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumplestiltskin and Belle receive an invitation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Invitation

Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time.

* * *

Belle turned the engraved party invitation over in her hands, thinking. This, she decided, would take no small bit of doing.

-

Paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. Even with the curse being lifted, people still felt the need to send him rent, and still felt the need to come to him with their problems. A world without magic hadn’t changed that, merely made him more…accessible. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Rumple?” 

Reflexively, he smiled. The one bright spot in an otherwise long and occasionally boring existence. “Yes, dear?”

“I need to ask you about something.”

What could the woman want now? “Then maybe you should ask, instead of making a crotchety old man wait.”

Her face peeked out from behind the office doors. “I don’t want you to say no.”

He felt the creeping edge of dread. “If this is about the magic-“

“Not that, silly. We’ve been over that.” She made a face at him. “Just…come out. Will you?”

He shuffled his papers and got up slowly, leaning on his cane for effect. “If you insist.” 

“I do.” And the pixie-woman disappeared.

Beyond the door, there was nothing unusual, except an envelope on the coffee table. Belle was sitting on the sofa, beaming. “Open it.”

“And this couldn’t have been done at my desk?” he groused, but opened it. And looked up. “Out of the question.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Belle said calmly. “Your paperwork wasn’t more pressing than me, it isn’t more pressing than this.”

“It is a party full of people who want nothing to do with me, and I am sure I want nothing to do with them.” The minx. Some days, he thought her half-possessed.

“And that’s not what I heard you saying to Regina the other day.” 

He hadn’t known she’d been there. “That’s not what I said.” 

“Nonsense.” Belle folded her hands in her lap, primly. “You pointed out most unkindly that none of the people she’d attempted to murder and hunt down wanted to invite her to dinner, while neglecting to point out that none of them had invited you, either.” She gestured to the invitation. “This is your opportunity. Be an honored guest, instead of a skeleton at the feast.” She poked him, then. “You’re all skin and bones, anyways. It’ll do you some good to get out and eat some of Granny’s cooking.”

Rumplestiltskin knew he had agreed the moment he had set foot out of his office. “I am not skin and bones.”

“You are,” she said tartly, but not without some amusement. “I don’t believe you’ve been feeding yourself properly since I left. You don’t have magic as a fallback anymore, Rumplestiltskin, you can’t do that to yourself.”

He exhaled. “I’ll go, if you go.”

“Pick me up at seven,” Belle said promptly, leaning back into the sofa’s cushions. “And while we’re here, now?”


End file.
